Zac Langdon-Pole
Porous World
3 East St
15 October — 10 December 2022
Information
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World, 2022, installation view, Michael Lett 3 East St
Zac Langdon-Pole, The Dog God Cycle, 2022, recombined jigsaw puzzles of: Stephan’s Quintet (2022), NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI; Rocky Mountain Landscape (1870), Albert Bierstadt, 3010 × 3930 × 40mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, The Dog God Cycle, 2022 (detail)
Zac Langdon-Pole, The Dog God Cycle, 2022, recombined jigsaw puzzles of: Cloud Study (1822), John Constable; Stephan’s Quintet (2022), NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI, 3010 × 3930 × 40mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World, 2022, installation view, Michael Lett 3 East St
Zac Langdon-Pole, The Dog God Cycle, 2022, recombined jigsaw puzzles of: Rocky Mountain Landscape (1870), Albert Bierstadt; Pillars of Creation (1995/2014), NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI, 3010 × 3930 × 40mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World, 2022, installation view, Michael Lett 3 East St
Zac Langdon-Pole, The Dog God Cycle, 2022, recombined jigsaw puzzles of: Pillars of Creation (1995/2014), NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI, Cloud Study (1822), John Constable, 3010 × 3930 × 40mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World (Marbled / Undergrowth), 2022, recombined jigsaw puzzles of: Marbled Endpaper, Encyclopedia Britannica, 7th Edition (1842); Undergrowth (1941), Eliot Hodgkin, 1020 x 790 x 50mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World, 2022, installation view, Michael Lett 3 East St
Zac Langdon-Pole, Translatio Studii (Revisited), 2022, bowl fragments, brass staples, 127 x 253 x 253mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Translatio Studii (Revisited), 2022, bowl fragments, brass staples, 127 x 253 x 253mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World, 2022, installation view, Michael Lett 3 East St
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World (Undergrowth / Marbled), 2022, recombined jigsaw puzzles of: Undergrowth (1941), Eliot Hodgkin Marbled Endpaper, Encyclopedia Britannica, 7th Edition (1842), 1020 x 790 x 50mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World (Undergrowth / Marbled), 2022 (detail)
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World, 2022, installation view, Michael Lett 3 East St
Zac Langdon-Pole, Concatenations, 2022, iron meteorite dust, magnets, murex shell, quartz, bronze socketed axe head (Luristan, Iron Age, ca. 1000-650 BCE), Blickensderfer typewriter case (ca. 1897), gymnasium/community center stool, antique microscope case, banded jasper “Meat Stone”, “Last Rites” Catholic idolatry box (1897), neoclassical/Corinthian style capital buck mould, 1540 × 440 × 440mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Concatenations, 2022 (detail)
Zac Langdon-Pole, The Same River Twice, 2020-2022, borer ridden wooden shelf trolley, gold, painted wooden shape-sorter blocks (two sets laid out identically on separate shelves); incorporating FKA “Assimilation Study” (2020), painted wooden shape-sorter blocks, hand carved Campo del Cielo meteorite, 460 × 750 × 713mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, The Same River Twice, 2020-2022 (detail)
Zac Langdon-Pole, A Quiver of Names, 2022, wooden specimen cabinet drawers, Blickensderfer, Royal, and Underwood typewriters, keys replaced with mixed ancient arrowheads: Neolithic (c. 7000-1700 BCE); Ancient Greek (c. 1200 BCE – 600 AD); Roman (c. 753 BC – 1453 AD); Ottoman (c. 1400 – 1600 AD), 1550 × 485 × 425mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, A Quiver of Names, 2022, wooden specimen cabinet drawers, Blickensderfer, Royal, and Underwood typewriters, keys replaced with mixed ancient arrowheads: Neolithic (c. 7000-1700 BCE); Ancient Greek (c. 1200 BCE – 600 AD); Roman (c. 753 BC – 1453 AD); Ottoman (c. 1400 – 1600 AD), 1550 × 485 × 425mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Untitled (X), 2022, four metric set-square rulers, pins, 900 × 900mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Untitled (X), 2022, four metric set-square rulers, pins, 900 × 900mm
Zac Langdon-Pole
Porous World
3 East St
15 October — 10 December 2022
Porous World is an examination of ways of seeing, it gently probes how images are constructed over time and affected by various human histories and world views. Ambitious in scale, this exhibition of all new work by artist Zac Langdon-Pole will be held at Michael Lett’s new premises at 3 East St.
Central to the exhibition are large-scale jigsaw puzzles made up of more than 128,000 individual puzzle pieces. This new suite of major works cleverly re-combines images taken from 19th century Romantic landscape paintings with the latest images from NASA’s Hubble and James Webb Space telescopes.
With these immense jigsaw-puzzle works, titled The Dog God Cycle, Langdon-Pole explores the hidden connections between paintings of 19th century colonial territories with NASA’s imaging of the depths of the universe and examines the idea of ‘the new world’ in completely unexpected ways.
The artist employs what he calls “ghost templates” which are inspired by figure/ground pictures used in psychology. For The Dog-God Cycle Langdon-Pole co-opts this technique so that viewers will find themselves questioning how images function as well as the very ways they view and perceive the world.
A whole host of additional sculptural artworks have been crafted from an astounding range of objects and materials, reflecting Langdon-Pole’s interest in vast human histories and knowledges including geology, astronomy and environmental sciences.
The materials and objects used include ancient arrowheads, typewriters, historic ceramic fragments, meteorites, magnets, mollusk shells, fossils, crystals, metric rulers, educational toys, semi-precious gemstones and borer-ridden wooden furniture that has been restored with gold leaf.
Together these diverse materials and large-scale artworks enable what the artist has called a “poetry of looking.”
Porous World uses images and objects to look at the various ways knowledge and culture have been transferred throughout human history. Guided by a relentless curiosity and applying a tender scrutiny to the world around him, Langdon-Pole creates enigmatic artworks that trace the myriad historical forces that have deposited us into the present.
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Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World, 2022, installation view, Michael Lett 3 East St
Zac Langdon-Pole, The Dog God Cycle, 2022, recombined jigsaw puzzles of: Stephan’s Quintet (2022), NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI; Rocky Mountain Landscape (1870), Albert Bierstadt, 3010 × 3930 × 40mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, The Dog God Cycle, 2022 (detail)
Zac Langdon-Pole, The Dog God Cycle, 2022, recombined jigsaw puzzles of: Cloud Study (1822), John Constable; Stephan’s Quintet (2022), NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI, 3010 × 3930 × 40mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World, 2022, installation view, Michael Lett 3 East St
Zac Langdon-Pole, The Dog God Cycle, 2022, recombined jigsaw puzzles of: Rocky Mountain Landscape (1870), Albert Bierstadt; Pillars of Creation (1995/2014), NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI, 3010 × 3930 × 40mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World, 2022, installation view, Michael Lett 3 East St
Zac Langdon-Pole, The Dog God Cycle, 2022, recombined jigsaw puzzles of: Pillars of Creation (1995/2014), NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI, Cloud Study (1822), John Constable, 3010 × 3930 × 40mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World (Marbled / Undergrowth), 2022, recombined jigsaw puzzles of: Marbled Endpaper, Encyclopedia Britannica, 7th Edition (1842); Undergrowth (1941), Eliot Hodgkin, 1020 x 790 x 50mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World, 2022, installation view, Michael Lett 3 East St
Zac Langdon-Pole, Translatio Studii (Revisited), 2022, bowl fragments, brass staples, 127 x 253 x 253mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Translatio Studii (Revisited), 2022, bowl fragments, brass staples, 127 x 253 x 253mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World, 2022, installation view, Michael Lett 3 East St
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World (Undergrowth / Marbled), 2022, recombined jigsaw puzzles of: Undergrowth (1941), Eliot Hodgkin Marbled Endpaper, Encyclopedia Britannica, 7th Edition (1842), 1020 x 790 x 50mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World (Undergrowth / Marbled), 2022 (detail)
Zac Langdon-Pole, Porous World, 2022, installation view, Michael Lett 3 East St
Zac Langdon-Pole, Concatenations, 2022, iron meteorite dust, magnets, murex shell, quartz, bronze socketed axe head (Luristan, Iron Age, ca. 1000-650 BCE), Blickensderfer typewriter case (ca. 1897), gymnasium/community center stool, antique microscope case, banded jasper “Meat Stone”, “Last Rites” Catholic idolatry box (1897), neoclassical/Corinthian style capital buck mould, 1540 × 440 × 440mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Concatenations, 2022 (detail)
Zac Langdon-Pole, The Same River Twice, 2020-2022, borer ridden wooden shelf trolley, gold, painted wooden shape-sorter blocks (two sets laid out identically on separate shelves); incorporating FKA “Assimilation Study” (2020), painted wooden shape-sorter blocks, hand carved Campo del Cielo meteorite, 460 × 750 × 713mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, The Same River Twice, 2020-2022 (detail)
Zac Langdon-Pole, A Quiver of Names, 2022, wooden specimen cabinet drawers, Blickensderfer, Royal, and Underwood typewriters, keys replaced with mixed ancient arrowheads: Neolithic (c. 7000-1700 BCE); Ancient Greek (c. 1200 BCE – 600 AD); Roman (c. 753 BC – 1453 AD); Ottoman (c. 1400 – 1600 AD), 1550 × 485 × 425mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, A Quiver of Names, 2022, wooden specimen cabinet drawers, Blickensderfer, Royal, and Underwood typewriters, keys replaced with mixed ancient arrowheads: Neolithic (c. 7000-1700 BCE); Ancient Greek (c. 1200 BCE – 600 AD); Roman (c. 753 BC – 1453 AD); Ottoman (c. 1400 – 1600 AD), 1550 × 485 × 425mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Untitled (X), 2022, four metric set-square rulers, pins, 900 × 900mm
Zac Langdon-Pole, Untitled (X), 2022, four metric set-square rulers, pins, 900 × 900mm